Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro must be soiling himself about now

Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, who already has a legal president waiting in the wings to take the reins, now has a mountain of U.S. pressure to get out while the getting’s good. He’s not much for Twitter, but in the last few hours, he’s been going like gangbusters, or, well, in his case, gangs, trying to rally the left to his regime and get his “narrative” for them out. Look at this amazingly long string of recent tweets.

The big thing making him scream publicly is news of the crushing round of sanctions employed by President Trump and his dream team of Latin American advisers, declaring anyone out there collaborating with the Venezuelan oil company now subject to sanctions, same as Venezuela’s ruling drug-dealers. The sanctions also focus on Citgo ownership, handing recognized power to Venezuela’s legitimate president, Juan Guaidó. That targets the money stream, and Maduro doesn’t have much money left anyway. All of these moves, coupled with defection after defection, and now the news U.S. incentives to the Venezuelan troops involved in running Venezuela’s oil company to defect (which seems to be a keystone of Operation Boot Maduro), are poison to the dictator.